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The True Measure of Repentance

The True Measure of Repentance

Vayigash, a Torah portion filled with drama and suspense, offers a profound message about regret, repentance, and forgiveness.

When famine struck the Land of Canaan, Joseph's brothers arrived in Egypt to purchase provisions. Although they had no idea who the thoroughly Egyptianized Joseph who stood before them was, Joseph recognized them immediately. In an instant, Joseph recalled the mockery his brothers had made of the dreams of his youth, and even his father's annoyance at Joseph's imperious demeanor. Joseph understood the irony of his dreams of mastery over the members of his family. He painfully recalled how years before, his brothers held him down, bound his hands and feet with rope, and sold him to passing strangers in order to be rid of him — forever. He remembered how unmoved they were by his pleas and tears. Now, after waiting all these years for vengeance, Joseph could plot retribution.

Joseph considered how best to play his advantage and began to question his brothers in an accusatory tone about the reason for their journey, where they came from, and whether they were spies.

"No my lord,” they said to him. “Your servants have come to buy food." (Genesis 42:10)

Joseph coerced his brothers into returning home and then journeying back to Egypt with Benjamin, now their father's favorite, who had been left behind. The brothers were convinced that this misfortune was repayment for what they had done to Joseph so many years before. Reuben admonished them:

"Didn’t I say to you, 'Do not sin against the lad?' But you wouldn’t listen, and so his blood-payment, see — it has come due.” (Genesis 42:22)

As they departed from Jacob to return to Egypt, Judah swore that he would protect Benjamin with his life.

Upon their return to Egypt, Joseph welcomed his brothers with a feast. As Joseph looked at Benjamin, he took hasty leave when he could not hold back his tears.

As Joseph arranged for them to take more grain, he hid his personal gold goblet in Benjamin's sack. After the brothers left, Pharaoh's troops overtook them, searched their sacks, and found the gold treasure in Benjamin's possession. Joseph ordered the boy to become his personal slave as punishment for the theft.

The brothers recalled when they cavalierly sold Joseph into slavery without thought of what effect their cruelty would have upon their father or Joseph. The brothers knew that this would surely mean the death of their father. Only now, decades later, when faced with the matching loss of a second brother, also their father's favorite, did they act differently. Judah pleaded with Joseph to let him take Benjamin's place and allow Benjamin to return to his father:

“So now, please let your servant remain as my lord’s slave in place of the lad, and let the lad go home with his brothers: for how can I go home to my father without the lad, and thus see the harm my father will suffer”? (Genesis 44:33-34)

Upon hearing Judah’s words, Joseph, no longer able to control himself, began to weep loudly. Before his dumbfounded brothers, he blurted out:

Why the elaborate ruse, if in the end Joseph revealed himself to his brothers? Rambam, the medieval commentator, provides sensitive insight into this puzzle in his Laws of Repentance:

What constitutes complete repentance? He who confronts an identical occurrence in which he previously transgressed, when (at another time) it is within his power to repeat the same wrongdoing, nevertheless restrains himself and does not succumb to temptation because of a wish to repent and not out of fear of authority ... this is true penitence. (Mishneh Torah, T‘shuvah 2.1)

Why, then, the drama of deception and intrigue directed by Joseph? Joseph maneuvered his brothers into once again having the opportunity to abandon their father's favorite child. When Judah offered himself as a slave in place of Benjamin, it was clear that the brothers regretted their past behavior and would never again be partners to a crime like the previous one in which they abandoned Joseph by selling him into slavery. Only when Joseph’s brothers regretted their shameful behavior and refused to behave in the same manner again did Joseph reveal his true identity.

What if Joseph, after so many years of separation from his brothers, were to write a letter to communicate with them in Parashat Vayigash. Would it look something like this?

Dear Judah and brothers,

I’m so heartened to see you were not willing to leave our youngest brother Benjamin to an unknown fate in Egypt. It seems you may have grown and evolved over the years since you sold me into slavery. Some might call this true repentance because you had the opportunity to do something evil once again and yet chose not to do so. However, you and I know that we can never exactly repeat another situation.

And yet, I’m feeling good about you being here.

Before I can give you forgiveness — before I can trust you — I need a few things:

1. I need to know you regret your decision of years ago, not because it caused our father pain, but because it was simply the wrong thing to do. I do not need to hear explanations that I taunted you with dreams of wheat or a coat of many colors. I need you to simply say it was wrong, you regret your actions, and you are sorry.

2. I need you to take responsibility and apologize to our father for the pain you caused him.

3. I need you to look at the pattern of deceit in the family and break the cycle by whatever means necessary.

4. I need to know that you, Judah, are volunteering to step into Benjamin’s place, not because you don’t want to face our father, but because you feel it is the right thing to do for everyone. I need to know this is not all about you.

I understand you are here because of the famine and I welcome you to the land. And, in order to trust you again, I need to know you are trustworthy.

Welcome to Egypt, brothers.

Joseph

Vizier of Egypt

Rabbi Ted Riter is a leadership coach and consultant with a powerful new program: “Shlaymut: Training for healthy leadership, training for a healthy life.” He also serves as the rabbi of Coastside Jewish Community in Half Moon Bay, CA. Rabbi Riter blogs on Medium.com and can be reached through his websitewww.tedriter.com or directly: ted@tedriter.com